CHAPTER XIV.

OCEAN LIFE.—THE HARVEST OF THE SEA.

Fishes and their Swimming Apparatus—The Bladder—Scientific Classification—Cartilaginous Fish—The Torpedo—A Living Galvanic Battery—The Shark—His Love for Man in a Gastronomic Sense—Stories of their Prowess—Catching a Shark—Their Interference with Whaling—The Tiger‐Shark—African Worship of the Monster—The Dog‐ fish—The Sturgeon—Enormous Fecundity—Caviare—The Bony Fishes—The Flying Fish: its Feats; its Enemies—Youth of a Salmon—The Parr, the Smolt, and the Grilse—Flourishes in the Sea—The Ponds at Stormontfield—The Salmon’s Enemies—The Ettrick Shepherd—Canned Salmon, and where it comes from—The Fish a Drug in N. W. America—Canoes impeded by them—The Fisheries of the Columbia River—The Fishing Season—Modes of Catching Salmon—The Factories and Processes employed.

And now we proceed to still higher organisations. The fish must have their turn in a work treating of their natural home, the ocean.(43) Fishes, intended always to live in water, have wonderful organs to aid them in swimming. “The anterior limbs,” says Figuier, “which correspond with the arms in man and the wings in birds, are attached to each side of the trunk, immediately behind the head, and form the pectoral fins. The posterior limbs occupy the lower surface of the body, and form the ventral fins. The latter, which are always over the ventral line, may be placed before, beneath, or, as is most usual, behind the former. Fishes possess, besides these two pair of fins, odd fins. The fins which are found on the back or dorsum are called the back or dorsal fins, those at the end of the tail are the caudal fins; finally, there is frequently another attached to the lower extremity of the body, which is called the anal fin. These fins are always nearly of the same structure, consisting generally of a fold of the skin, supported by slender, flexible, cartilaginous, or osseous rays, connected by a thin membrane.” The muscles which move these fins are powerful. Further, nearly all species of fish possess a swimming bladder, over which the animal has control, and can thereby increase or diminish the specific gravity of its body. Immediately behind the head are the gill openings; respiration is effected by water, in its natural state always charged with air, being taken in at the mouth, which passes over the gills, and is afterwards ejected. The eyes in fish are usually very large.

The scientific classification of fishes usually adopted is that of Muller. He divided them into five groups, the _Leptocardia_, _Cyclostomata_, _Selachia_, _Ganoidea_, and _Teleostea_. The first of these is represented by a single genus, _Amphioxus_, a little slender gelatinous fish, rarely over two inches in length, and commonly found on all sandy coasts. The second order is characterised as serpentine, void of fins, and with a mouth formed for suction. The lamprey is a familiar example.

The third order, _Selachia_, includes a number of cartilaginous fish, varying much in form; the rays, dog‐fish, skate, torpedo, shark, and saw‐ fish belong to this important division. The torpedo has the power of giving a strong electrical shock. Redi, an Italian naturalist of the seventeenth century, first studied them carefully. He caught and landed an electric ray, and pressing it with his hand, experienced a tingling sensation, which extended to his arms and shoulders, and was followed by a disagreeable trembling. This electric power dies with the animal. Dr. Walsh made some interesting experiments with them. He placed a living torpedo on a clean wet towel, and connected brass wires with it. Round the torpedo were eight persons, standing on isolating substances. One end of the wire was placed in a basin full of water. The first person had a finger of one hand in this basin, and a finger of the other in a second basin, also full of water. The second person had a finger in the last‐ named basin, and a finger of the other hand in a third basin, and so on round the circle of eight persons. The end of the second wire was plunged into the last basin of the series, thus establishing a complete electric circuit. At the moment when the experimenter touched the torpedo a tolerably strong shock was felt by all participating. When the torpedo was placed on an isolated supporter, it showed its energy by communicating to several persons forty or fifty shocks in the short space of a minute and a half.

The family _Carcharidæ_ includes the true sharks, some species of which attain to a length of twenty, or even thirty, feet. They are the terror of all other fish and molluscs. “But the prey which has the greatest charm for him is man; the shark loves him dearly, but it is with the affection of the gourmand. If we may believe some travellers, when several varieties of human food comes in its way, the shark prefers the European to the Asiatic, and both to the negro.” He has been known to jump clean aboard a fisherman’s boat, and even to snap up a sailor from the shrouds. Commerson relates the following:—The corpse of a negro had been suspended from a yard‐arm _twenty feet_ above the level of the sea. A shark was seen making every effort to reach the body, which eventually he did, and tore it limb from limb in presence of the horror‐stricken crew. The mouth of the shark is placed in the lower part of the head, and the animal has to turn itself in the water before he can seize an object above him. On the African coast the negroes take advantage of this fact; they swim towards him, and seize the moment when he turns to rip up his belly with a large strong knife. The adult shark has six rows of murderous‐looking teeth, forming a perfect arsenal of deadly weapons.

Captain Basil Hall describes the mode by which sharks are sometimes captured. “The sharp‐curved dorsal fin of a huge shark was seen rising about six inches above the water, and cutting the glazed surface of the sea by as fine a line as if a sickle had been drawn along it. ‘Messenger, run to the cook for a piece of pork,’ cried the captain, taking the command with as much glee as if an enemy’s cruiser had been in sight. ‘Where’s your hook, quartermaster?’ ‘Here, sir, here,’ cried the fellow, feeling the point, and declaring it was as sharp as any lady’s needle, and in the next instant piercing with it a huge junk of pork weighing four or five pounds. The hook, which is as large as one’s little finger, has a curvature about as large as a man’s hand when half closed, and is six or eight inches in length, while a formidable line, furnished with three or four feet of chain attached to the end of the mizen topsail halyard, is now cast into the ship’s wake.

“Sometimes the very instant the bait is cast over the stern the shark flies at it with such eagerness that he actually springs partially out of the water. This, however, is rare. On these occasions he gorges the bait, the hook, and a foot or two of the chain, without any mastication, and darts off with the treacherous prize with such prodigious velocity that it makes the rope crack again as soon as the coil is drawn out. Much dexterity is required in the hand which holds the line at this moment. A bungler is apt to be too precipitate, and jerk away the hook before it has got far enough into the shark’s stomach. The secret of the sport is to let the monster gulp down the whole bait, and then to give the line a violent pull, by which the barbed point buries itself in the coat of the stomach. When the hook is first fixed it spins out like the log‐line of a ship going twelve knots.

“The suddenness of the jerk with which the shark is brought up often turns him quite over. No sailor, however, thinks of hauling one on board merely by the rope fastened to the hook. To prevent the line breaking, the hook snapping, or the jaw being torn away, a running bowline is adopted. This noose is slipped down the rope and passed over the monster’s head, and is made to join at the point of junction of the tail with the body; and now the first part of the fun is held to be completed. The vanquished enemy is easily drawn up over the taffrail, and flung on deck, to the delight of the crew.” Even then he is sometimes a very formidable enemy. The flesh of the shark, though sometimes eaten, is coarse and leathery.

On several of the smaller islands of the Spanish Main whaling stations are established. After the huge fish have been captured, they are towed by the boats to one of these stations, and the blubber is stripped off and carried on shore to the boiling‐house in large white blocks, where a simple apparatus is set up for “trying‐out” the oil. It sometimes happens that immediately after the whale has been killed the sharks surround it in such numbers, and devour the blubber with such rapacity, that if the distance be great and the currents adverse, the greater part has been eaten off before the whale can be towed ashore; and the labour of the fishermen is thus thrown away.

The tiger‐shark is a more formidable monster than others of its tribe, because of its power of seizing its prey without turning on its back or side. It is enabled to do this from the great size of its mouth, and from its position, which is near the end of the snout, instead of underneath, as in other varieties of the shark.

“As soon as the carcase of the whale has been stripped of its blubber, it is towed out at high water to a sufficient distance from the station to ensure of its being carried away by the falling tide. This is necessary, for the stench from so large a mass of putrefying flesh, exposed as it has been to the intense action of a tropical sun for three or four days, is more than unpleasant.

“Now is the opportunity for the shark‐hunters. They take possession of the remains, tow them to some convenient nook of the Bocas, as the channels between the islands are called, and there anchor them. All is now prepared, and nothing remains but eagerly and silently to watch for the assembly of the ravenous brutes to their midnight orgies.”

The liver of the shark yields a most valuable oil, largely used in the colony as a substitute for cod‐liver oil. The liver of a shark fifteen feet long will yield from twelve to sixteen gallons of oil.

The canoes used for shark‐hunting are some twenty feet in length. In the bow a deep groove is cut, to guide the rope after the fish has been struck. A coil of fifteen fathoms of rope, carefully arranged under the thwarts, is secured at one end to a piece of strong chain, at the other end of which is a harpoon. A lance is kept on board to assist in giving the _coup de grâce_ to the shark when he has exhausted himself sufficiently.

The inhabitants of many parts of the African coasts worship the shark, and consider its stomach the road to heaven. Three or four times a year they row out and offer the shark poultry and goats to satisfy his appetite. This is not all; a child is once a year sacrificed to the monster, which has been specially fattened for this occasion from its birth to the age of ten. On the _fête_ day, the unfortunate little victim is bound to a post on a sandy point at low water; as the tide rises the sharks arrive. The child may shriek, and the mother may weep, but it is of no avail; even its own parent thinks that the horrible sacrifice will ensure her child’s entry into heaven.

The dog‐fish—from which we derive the skin known as _shagreen_, used for spectacle and other cases—the furious and voracious hammerhead, and the saw‐fish, belong to the same great order. The last named will attack any inhabitant of the deep whatever, and even dares to measure his strength with the whale. Its length is from twelve to fifteen feet, while its weapon of defence is sometimes as much as two yards in length. Occasionally it dashes itself against the side of a ship with such fury as to leave its sword broken in the timber.

Of the fourth great order, _Ganoidea_, the sturgeon is the most prominent example. It is essentially a sea‐fish, although ascending rivers at stated periods, as does the salmon. It is particularly noticeable for the number of bony plates or scales on its back and belly. In the sea the sturgeon feeds on herrings, mackerel, and other fish; in the rivers on salmon. It is caught in traps, or in nets. The prepared roe, cleaned, washed in vinegar, and partially dried, is the caviare of the Russians. The eggs of a female sturgeon will weigh over one‐third of its entire body, and as they sometimes reach a weight of nearly 3,000 pounds, the preparation of caviare becomes an important and profitable industry.

The fifth order, _Teleostea_, or bony fishes, constitutes a lengthy series. Among it must be placed the globular and phosphorescent sun‐fish, the spiny globe‐fish, the bony trunk‐fish, and the cuirassed pipe‐fish, the sea‐horse, which has a head not unlike a horse, and floats vertically, the flying‐fish, the eels, herrings, salmon, carp, cod, flat‐fish, mullets, tunnies, and others too numerous to mention. It is for man’s purposes the most important of all the orders.

The flying‐fish have been incidentally mentioned before in this work. Captain Basil Hall observed a flight of 200 yards; they have come on board a vessel fourteen or fifteen feet, and into the chains of a line‐of‐battle ship twenty feet above the water. They are considerably harassed by the attacks of other fish, and when they take to the air often fall victims to gulls and other sea‐birds. Sharks and dolphins are their particular enemies. Their glittering, silvery brilliancy is most beautiful in the brightness of tropical seas.

Among the most important bony fishes must certainly be first placed the salmon, which includes three well‐known species, _Salmo salar_ (the salmon itself), _S. fario_ (the salmon trout), and _S. trutta_ (the trout). The early life of the salmon is interesting. The infant fry is primarily, of course, very helpless, and during the first two or three weeks of its existence carries about with it, as a provision for food, a portion of the yolk of the egg from which it was hatched. This generally lasts it from twenty to forty days. It is two years before the youngster ventures out to sea. In the first stage the young salmon is called a _parr_; during the second it is a _smolt_, _i.e._, a parr plus a covering of silvery scales. The smolt, which in the course of its two or more years’ stay in the river has only attained a growth of six or eight inches, returns from the sea in a couple of months weighing three or four pounds, and after six months ten or twelve pounds. It is now a _grilse_.

Dr. Bertram says of the salmon’s growth:—

“The sea‐feeding must be favourable, and the condition of the fish well suited to the salt‐water to ensure such rapid growth—a rapidity which every visit of the fish to the ocean serves but to confirm. Various fish, whilst in the grilse state, have been marked to prove this; and at every migration they returned to their breeding‐stream with added weight and improved health. What the salmon feeds upon whilst in the salt‐water is not well known, as the digestion of the fish is so rapid as to prevent the discovery of food in their stomachs when they are captured and opened. Guesses have been made, and it is likely that these approximate to the truth; but the old story of the rapid voyage of the salmon to the North Pole and back again turns out, like the theory upon which was built up the herring migration romance, to be a mere myth.

“None of our naturalists have yet attempted to elucidate that mystery of salmon life which converts one‐half of the fish into sea‐going smolts, whilst as yet the other moiety remain as parr. It has been investigated so far at the breeding‐ponds at Stormontfield, but without resolving the question. There is another point of doubt as to salmon life which I shall also have a word to say about—namely, whether or not that fish makes two visits annually to the sea; likewise, whether it be probable that a smolt remains in the salt water for nearly a year before it becomes a grilse. A salmon only stays, as it is popularly supposed, a very short time in the salt water; and as it is one of the quickest‐swimming fishes we have, it is able to reach a distant river in a very short space of time, therefore it is most desirable we should know what it does with itself when it is not migrating from one water to the other; because, according to the opinion of some naturalists, it would speedily become so deteriorated in the river as to be unequal to the slightest exertion....

“At every stage of its career the salmon is surrounded by enemies. At the very moment of spawning, the female is watched by a horde of devourers, who instinctively flock to the breeding‐grounds in order to feast on the ova. The hungry pike, the lethargic perch, the greedy trout, the very salmon itself, are lying in wait, all agape for the palatable roe, and greedily swallowing whatever quantity the current carries down. Then the waterfowl eagerly pounces on the precious deposit the moment it has been forsaken by the fish; and if it escape being gobbled up by such cormorants, the spawn may be washed away by a flood, or the position of the bed may be altered, and the ova be destroyed, perhaps for want of water. As an instance of the loss incidental to salmon‐spawning in the natural way, I may just mention that a whiting of about three‐quarters of a pound weight has been taken in the Tay with three hundred impregnated salmon ova in its stomach! If this fish had been allowed to dine and breakfast at this rate during the whole of the spawning season it would have been difficult to estimate the loss our fisheries would have sustained by his voracity. No sooner do the eggs ripen, and the young fish come to life, than they are exposed, in their defenceless state, to be preyed upon by all the enemies already enumerated; while, as parr, they have been taken out of our streams in such quantities as to be available for the purpose of pig‐feeding and manure! Some economists estimate that only one egg out of every thousand becomes a full‐sized salmon. Mr. Thomas Tod Stoddart calculated that 150,000,000 of salmon ova are annually deposited in the river Tay; of which only 50,000,000, or one‐third, come to life and attain the parr stage; that 20,000,000 of these parr become in time smolts, and that their number is ultimately diminished to 100,000; of which 70,000 are caught, the other 30,000 being left for breeding purposes. Sir Humphry Davy calculated that if a salmon produced 17,000 roe, only 800 of these would arrive at maturity. It is well, therefore, that the female fish yields 1,000 eggs for each pound of her weight; for a lesser degree of fecundity, keeping in view the enormous waste of life indicated by these figures, would long since—especially taking into account the destructive modes of fishing that used a few years ago to be in use—have resulted in the extinction of this valuable fish.

“The first person who ‘took a thought about the matter’—_i.e._, as to whether the parr was or was not the young of the salmon—and arrived at a solid conclusion, was James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, who, in his usual impulsive way, proceeded to verify his opinions. He had, while herding sheep, many opportunities of watching the fishing streams, and, like most of his class, he wielded his fishing‐rod with considerable skill. While angling in the tributaries of some of the Border salmon‐streams, he had often caught the parr as it was changing into the smolt, and had, after close observation, come to the conclusion that the little parr was none other than the infant salmon. Mr. Hogg did not keep his discovery a secret, and the more his facts were controverted by the naturalists of the day the louder became his proclamations. He had suspected all his life that parr were salmon in their first stage. He would catch a parr with a few straggling scales upon it; he would look at this fish, and think it queer; instantly he would catch another, a little better covered with silver scales, but all loose, and not adhering to the body. Again, he would catch a smolt, manifestly a smolt, all covered with the white silver scales, yet still rather loose upon the skin, which would come off in his hand. Removing these scales, he found the parr with the blue finger‐marks below them, and that the fish were young salmon then became as manifest to the shepherd as that a lamb, if suffered to live, would become a sheep. Wondering at this, he marked a great number of the lesser fish, and offered rewards (characteristically enough, of whisky) to the peasantry to bring him such as had evidently undergone the change predicted by him. When this conclusion was settled in his mind, the Shepherd at once proclaimed his new‐gained knowledge. ‘What will the fishermen of Scotland think’ said he, ‘when I assure them, on the faith of long experience and observation, and on the word of one who can have no interest in instilling an untruth into their minds, that every insignificant parr with which the cockney fisher fills his basket is a salmon lost!’ These crude attempts of the impulsive Shepherd of Ettrick—and he was hotly opposed by the late Mr. Buist, of Stormontfield—were not without their fruits; indeed, they were so successful as quite to convince him that parr were young salmon in their first stage.”

The following amusing dialogue on the habits of the salmon once took place between the Ettrick Shepherd and a friend:—

“_Shepherd_:—‘I maintain that ilka saumon comes aye back again frae the sea till spawn in its ain water.’

“_Friend_:—‘Toots, toots, Jamie! hoo can it manage till do that? Hoo, in the name o’ wonder, can a fish, travelling up a turbid water frae the sea, know when it reaches the entrance to its birthplace, or that it has arrived at the tributary that was its cradle?’

“_Shepherd_:—‘Man, the great wonder to me is no hoo the fish get back, but hoo they find their way till the sea first ava, seein’ that they’ve never been there afore!’”

The canned salmon, now generally popular in England, and which, though some few years ago an expensive luxury, is now within the reach of all, comes principally from the Columbia River, Oregon, and other parts of the North Pacific coasts. In North‐Western America the fish is a perfect drug in the market. In a city like San Francisco it sells for eight cents (4d.) per pound. Higher up the coast a large fish is obtained for a quarter to half a dollar. Further north a piece of tobacco or a few needles will purchase a twenty or thirty pound salmon. They are so abundant that the writer has seen them on the beaches of streams and creeks falling into Frazer River, British Columbia, by the score, bleeding, gasping, and dying, having literally crowded each other out of the water. “Schools” of them are often so densely packed together, that they impede the progress of canoes and boats.

The salmon fisheries of the Columbia, Oregon, itself one of the grandest rivers in the world, give employment to 4,000 men during the season, and nearly all the canned salmon consumed in Europe comes from it.(44) There are dozens of rivers on the north‐west coast equally available, and the business even now is in its infancy; while salted, pickled, or smoked salmon, hardly ever reaches England from there at all. As will appear, there are splendid opportunities on that coast for hundreds of new‐comers, it may almost be said with or without capital. It is needless to state that the former is always to be preferred. Where isn’t it?

Some ten or a dozen varieties of salmon and salmon‐trout, Mr. Murphy tells us, enter the rivers of North‐Western America, but only one is selected for commercial purposes. Two of the most delicate‐eating varieties—the silvery‐white and spring salmons—are never packed in tins, because their schools are less abundant and the fish themselves smaller. The hook‐nosed and dog salmons are rarely eaten, except by Indians; while the man has not yet been discovered who would tackle the hump‐back. The blue‐back, or weak‐toothed salmon, an inferior fish also, is only exported to the Sandwich Islands, where the natives are said to really prefer its lean and fibrous flesh to the more delicately‐flavoured and succulent kinds. The salmon principally caught is distinguished by the Indians as the “Tyhee,” or chief; it is abundant, large, and most excellent eating; it possesses those “all‐round” qualifications which particularly fit it for commerce and cooking. It is the _Salmo quinnat_ of the naturalists.

The fishery season on the Columbia lasts from the beginning of April to the end of July, and the fisheries extend along the river for a hundred miles or more. Some of the curing establishments employ their own men to tend the nets, while others purchase from fishermen, the price for fish weighing from fifteen to forty pounds ranging from 25 cents to 50 cents (approximately one to two shillings). These prices would seem ridiculously low were it not for the abundance of the fish and the ease with which they are taken. A party of four men may secure from 300 to 2,000 salmon in twenty‐four hours! Take the lowest estimate—300 at 25 cents. This gives 75 dollars (or £15) to divide among the four fishermen. But this would be a very poor catch. A thousand fish are no uncommon haul. This at the lowest price paid would give 250 dollars (£50) to be divided. Of course there is the wear and tear of boat and fishing gear to be considered.

Large quantities of the fish are caught in weirs. The Indians, also, knowing that the salmon avoids currents if possible, build out into the river from the shore, for ten or a dozen feet, walls of stone a few inches in height. The salmon crowd into the quieter water caused thereby, and are easily captured in nets or by spearing. They are so numerous in places that the Indian can often flap them out of the water, by a sudden dexterous jerk of his paddle, to his squaw on the beach, who then immediately knocks them on the head and guts them.

At the curing houses, mostly owned by Americans, the labour is chiefly performed by Chinamen under the superintendence of white men. “John” quickly and cleverly guts the fish and cuts off its head; then cuts it into chunks, which are boiled, first in salt and afterwards in fresh water. Next the tins are filled, and soldered down, all but one little hole in their tops. The tins are then immersed in boiling water, and when every particle of air is excluded, a few drops of solder effectually seal them up till wanted for the table. The process is in effect the same employed in the preservation of meats and fruits in tins.

Many British and Irish waterfalls are celebrated for their salmon leaps. In Inverness‐shire at Kilmorack, at Ballyshannon in Donegal, and Leixlip near Dublin, in Pembrokeshire and elsewhere, the leaps are noted, and at many of them there are osier baskets placed below to catch the fish when they fail and fall. Sportsmen have even shot them, on the wing as it were, in their leap. At the Falls of Kilmorack “Lord Lovat conceived the idea of placing a furnace and frying‐pan on a point of rock overhanging the river. After their unsuccessful effort some of the unfortunate salmon would fall accidentally into the frying‐pan. The noble lord could thus boast that the resources of his country were so abundant, that on placing a furnace and frying‐pan on the banks of its rivers, the salmon would leap into it of their own accord, without troubling the sportsman to catch them. It is more probable, however, that Lord Lovat knew that the way to enjoy salmon in perfection is to cook it when fresh from the water, and before the richer parts of the fish have ceased to curd.”

In our own land, the Tweed, Tay, Spey, and Severn, are all noted rivers for salmon; the Tay fish sometimes weigh sixty pounds. It is a curious fact that the full‐grown salmon never feeds in the rivers. “Juvenile experience on the part of the fish, recurring as a phantasm, causes them to snap at a shining artificial minnow or a gaudy fly, but they never rise out of the water; the bait must dip to them, and when hooked they shake the intruder as a terrier does a rat.” Their superabundant store of fat enables them to live on themselves, as it were, as do the Asiatic and African doomba sheep when avalanches and heavy snow‐falls stop their supplies of herbage.(45) They become much thinner during their stay in fresh water; their colour becomes duller, and their flavour much depreciated. Izaak Walton’s statement that “the further they get from the sea they be both fatter and better” is utterly erroneous, for they fatten only in the sea. In March, 1845, the Duke of Athole took a ten‐pound salmon in the Tay after it had spawned, and attached a medal to it and then let it go to sea. The same individual, with its decoration, was fished up five weeks and a few days afterwards, when it had been to the refreshing salt water. It had more than doubled its weight, for it weighed twenty‐one pounds.